Kali's 5th Birthday!

What happened to the last 5 years and how did my baby Kali all of sudden turn 5?? She has been waiting for this day for the whole last year...seriously, the day she turned 4 she couldn't wait to be 5! And it has come and gone with lots of fun celebrations with our family. November 3rd is her actual birthday but last weekend we celebrated Kali and her cousin Justin Capell's 5th birthday with the whole Stacy family and we had a great time with all the family here. My kids always LOVE having Justin and Jordan come for a visit and it was even better that Auntie Sheila, Uncle Jeff and Grandma and Grandpa Stacy could come too! Kali also had a soccer game that afternoon and Grandma and Grandpa were happy to come along and cheer our Kali on...even though they lost pretty bad and it pretty much rained the whole time. So that explains half the pics with Kali in her soccer uniform with wet messed up hair, oh well. :) Here are some pics from our Saturday celebrations:

Thanks Mema and Grandpa Brown for the new books and cute outfit, and Jasmine princess doll(not pictured)!!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Stacy for all the fun crafts and scissors! Kali seriously uses them EVERY day!!!

Kali loves her cousins! Thanks Justin and Jordan for the pink stick horsey!!

We decided to get Kali this awesome doll house from Costco that totally works for Barbies too and she LOVES it!! Pretty much everything we get Kali at this point is an investment for us since there are two more girls that they will get passed down to! :) Gotta think ahead!

NOV. 3rd- The morning of Kali's actual birthday she requested pancakes and Mark decided to get a little creative...Kali loved it and I'm pretty sure she was feeling pretty special :) We gave her just one more little present to open on her birthday too. I'm still not sure why Zhu-Zhu pets are so exciting but she was pretty excited to get one along with some lip gloss and nail polish.

After school I took Kali to Chickfila with a couple friends to celebrate and unfortunately didn't get any pics of that little celebration. Kali's final request for her birthday was to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for dinner. I didn't want to pay for or plan a big party this year because those of you who know me, know how much I love planning parties...soooo we decided to make it a family party and had the Hinson's meet us there. It was a perfect, non busy night to go and turned out to be super low key and fun for all!!










And our birthday celebrations wouldn't be complete without our FREE ice cream from Cold Stone! If you haven't already, you need to sign up on their website to get free ice cream for your birthday every year. We just so happen to have 3 birthdays pretty close together so it totally works out to make a fun family night of free ice cream! YUMM!!!!

Happy Birthday to our big 5 year old Kali!!! We love you so much and are so grateful for your fun energetic, sweet, thoughtful, and loving personality in our home!!

Happy Halloween!

Here are my little "Trunk-or Treaters". We went to our Ward Soup Fest and Trunk-or-Treat on Tuesday and the kids had a blast! They we so excited to dress up, play the fun games and get plenty of candy. Madelyn and Kali were the cutest butterflies and Zach went as a dragon this year. I, of course was loving that I didn't have to purchase a single costume and was thankful my kids were happy to wear whatever we had ... even if Madelyn wore the same costume last year. Hooray that it fits her another year, right?!!

Annual trip to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm

This is one of my favorite traditions in October and the kids love it every time we go!! We started out with checking out the animal farm and Madelyn seemed to really like this part A LOT. She wanted to check out every single animal and was just entranced by the little pigs and the HUGE momma and papa pig. We rode the train ride and finished the night off with the hay ride out to to the pumpkin fields where we picked out our pumpkins. Halloween just wouldn't be the same without getting to pick our pumpkins straight from the fields!

Big sisters room

We've been a little busy lately with some remodeling and moving furniture around and here is what we have to show for it!! I am in LOVE with my girls' new room and so are they!! Mark and I worked long hard hours on the painting/ paneling/caulking/ and more painting with some much needed help and direction from Neal. Poor Madelyn was kicked out of her room and lived in our closet for about four nights until we could get everything finished. But she didn't seem to mind when we got her up on the Saturday morning and showed her her new "big girl" bed and room!! Kali couldn't wait to finally be sharing a room with her little sister and have her new purple bedding too! So the adventure begins! So far so good with the whole big bed thing with Madelyn and with the sharing a room plan. She LOVES being a big girl and has been doing great sleeping in her new bed and with the whole potty training thing. Why do I feel like all of a sudden my baby is no longer my baby anymore?!! So sad how quickly they turn into this little person and become so independent. I guess it is time to start getting ready for the new baby girl that will be joining our family in February :) We did move all the baby furniture into Kali's old room that will now become the new baby room. That will be our next project but we decided we will just paint :)

Self potty trained...

One week and counting...Madelyn has been wearing panties everyday (except for naps and bed of course). She decided one day last week that she wanted to go on the potty and wear big girl panties and has never looked back. Seriously!! She is amazing and has been the easiest potty trainee yet out of all three of my kids. Yes, those are Madelyn's cute little buns in those Minnie Mouse panties and she is just about the cutest little "big" girl EVER!! I was not planning on potty training her until after this baby comes in February but apparently that was not her plan. When they are ready they're ready, and that couldn't be more true!! Hopefully the success continues and we don't regress after the baby comes...I think there's still plenty of time to avoid the whole regressing thing but I may not be so lucky! Here's to continued potty success!!

A visit from Mema

This last week Mema came to visit and we had a great time with her here! One of the things we promised we would do was take Mema to Apple Hill for the first time since she has never been with us in all the years she has been visiting. It was of course one of the busiest weekends in October for Apple Hill so we packed up early and headed up the hill for an early start. We made sure to do all the fun things we knew the kids would love and of course making sure to get our favorite yummy caramel apples and apple donuts and a taste of the fresh apple cider!!

I'm sure Mom and Neal will love me for posting this one but I thought it was pretty funny.

Yes, that is a fish hanging from the stick that Zach is holding!! He caught this trout all by himself using his "stick" fishing pole he made all on his own with a string and hook that he found on the ground and then added his own pretzel as bait. It was actually quite funny because we didn't pay for a pole or fishing license that they totally over charge you for...oops. But we did pay for that one tasty trout we ended up eating the next day. We were all quite amazed at our little fisherman!

Thanks for coming Mema! We hope you had as much fun as we did! We love you!!

Sisters Weekend for the big 3-0!

For my 30th birthday this year all I wanted was a girls overnight getaway and to do nothing but my favorite girl things with my friends and sisters. As it all turned out only my sisters were able to come and we had a BLAST! Thanks so much to all our amazingly wonderful husbands, we got to take a break from being mommies and wives and just be sisters and enjoy each others' company that hasn't happened in years. I couldn't have been more excited when I found out Kelli and Kathryn both were flying from Texas and Utah to come spend a weekend with me and Kristin for my 30th birthday! Seriously awesome! We started off the weekend by getting pedicures and eating lunch before heading out to San Francisco for the night and having an entire day of shopping the next day. It was so nice to have no schedule or commitments and to just do what we felt like doing whenever we wanted. And we did shop til we dropped...or I did at least. :)

Enjoying our much needed pedicures and pampering. :)

Scary cab ride to Hillstone for dinner and then a walk down Pier 39.

Not sure what the giant random macaroni noodle was for.

Supposed to be a picture of our pretty toes...ignore the bird poop and nasty ground.

Trying on ugly shoes in Macy's. Yummy lunch at Cheesecake Factory :)

Thanks so much sisters for the perfect birthday weekend!! I seriously couldn't have asked for anything more and I am so grateful for the amazing sisters, wives, and mothers that you are and for the amazing examples that you are to me. I don't know what I would do without you!! I love you all so much!!